What’s Right With Jamaica? CHAMPS … producing champs!

Jamaica is recognized internationally as a sprint factory. The country boasts some of the best and fastest athletes the world has ever seen, and carries a flair for athletic excellence that has other nations literally black, green and gold with envy. Much of this success has been attributed to a school culture that fosters proper technique and training in budding athletes from an early age. Nothing demonstrates this as clearly as the Inter-Secondary Schools Sports Association (ISSA)/GraceKennedy Boys and Girls’ Championships – what we have come to know and love as plain old ‘Champs’.

For well over a century, Champs has produced some of Jamaica’s finest athletes, providing the perfect avenue through which to identify and develop talent for the national programme. The inaugural staging of Champs was under the moniker ‘The Jamaica Schools Championship Sports’ in 1910, and was won by the Wolmer’s Boys. The first modern Girls’ Championships took place in 1957, and was won by St Hilda’s High School. It was held separately from the Boys’ championships, with mostly similar events, at Sabina Park. The Boys’ and Girls’ champs were merged in 1999, creating the ‘superchamps’ we now have today.

Here are some of the posts we have on Champs – you can search here for more.